Based on shocking real events, this haunting drama follows 13-year-old Sara as her world collapses after her family’s brutal murder. Forced to hide her faith and her name, she lives each day behind a false identity where one mistake means instant death. Critics call it “raw, riveting, and impossible to shake.” Childhood stolen. Family gone. Identity erased. Courage everlasting.

NOW STREAMING — the story that will haunt you long after the credits fade.

In the vast ocean of streaming content, where superhero epics clash with rom-com escapism, Netflix has unearthed a gem that defies categorization: My Name Is Sara. Directed by Steven Oritt and released quietly in 2019 before finding its digital resurrection on the platform, this biographical drama isn’t just another Holocaust narrative—it’s a visceral punch to the gut, a testament to human resilience forged in the fires of unimaginable horror. At its core is Sara Góralnik, a real 13-year-old Jewish girl from Ukraine whose life was shattered in 1942 when Nazi forces and local collaborators descended upon her village. What follows is not a tale of camps or gas chambers, but of solitary survival in the shadows, where every breath is a gamble and every glance could spell doom.

The film opens with a deceptively idyllic scene: a bustling Jewish shtetl in Korolówka, Ukraine, alive with the rhythms of family, faith, and folklore. Sara, played with heartbreaking authenticity by newcomer Zuzanna Surowy, is the epitome of youthful innocence—giggling with siblings, helping her mother in the kitchen, dreaming of a future unbound by the gathering storm clouds of war. But history, as it so cruelly does, intrudes without warning. In a sequence that unfolds with the relentless inevitability of a nightmare, Sara’s family is rounded up and executed in a mass grave on the outskirts of town. The brutality is not sensationalized but presented with a stark, unflinching realism that lingers like smoke from a distant fire. Sara, separated by chance during the chaos, witnesses the unthinkable from afar—her parents, brothers, and extended kin mowed down in a hail of gunfire.

This is where My Name Is Sara diverges from the more familiar Holocaust tropes. While films like Schindler’s List or The Pianist grapple with the machinery of genocide on a grand scale, Oritt’s work zooms in on the intimate terror of individual erasure. Sara doesn’t end up in Auschwitz or Treblinka; instead, she embarks on a perilous odyssey of reinvention. Adopting the pseudonym “Sara Kulka” and posing as a Ukrainian Christian orphan, she seeks refuge with a farming family in a nearby village. The Paturas—headed by the stern yet conflicted Ivan (played by Michalina Olszańska in a role that echoes the moral ambiguities of occupied Europe)—take her in, unaware of her true heritage. Or are they? The film masterfully toys with suspicion, turning everyday interactions into minefields of potential betrayal.

Critics have been unanimous in their praise, hailing it as “raw, riveting, and impossible to shake.” RogerEbert.com’s review notes how the movie “captures the claustrophobic dread of living a lie in plain sight,” while Variety describes it as “a masterclass in understated tension.” Indeed, the haunting quality stems from its refusal to indulge in melodrama. There are no swelling orchestras or heroic monologues; instead, the soundtrack is the creak of floorboards, the whisper of wind through wheat fields, and the pounding heartbeat of a girl perpetually on the edge.

To fully appreciate the film’s impact, one must delve into the historical bedrock upon which it stands. Sara Shapiro (née Góralnik) was born in 1929 in what was then Polish Ukraine, a region steeped in centuries of Jewish culture but increasingly poisoned by antisemitic fervor as the Nazis advanced. The Holocaust in Ukraine was uniquely savage, claiming over 1.5 million Jewish lives through mobile killing units known as Einsatzgruppen, local pogroms, and forced labor. Korolówka’s massacre, though fictionalized in specifics for dramatic purposes, mirrors real events like the 1941 killings in nearby towns such as Babi Yar, where 33,771 Jews were slaughtered in two days alone.

Sara’s survival strategy—hiding in plain sight—was a path trodden by thousands, though few as young as she. Known as “passing” or “living under false papers,” it required not just forged documents but a complete psychological overhaul. She had to unlearn Yiddish inflections, suppress Sabbath observances, and feign devotion to Catholic rituals. One slip—a Hebrew prayer muttered in sleep, a refusal to eat pork—could unravel everything. Historical records from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum detail similar stories: children like Rivka Yosselevska, who survived a mass shooting by playing dead, or the “hidden children” of Belgium and France who were sheltered by non-Jewish families.

In My Name Is Sara, this duality is portrayed with exquisite nuance. Zuzanna Surowy’s performance is a revelation; her wide-eyed fear evolves into a steely resolve without ever losing the fragility of adolescence. Scenes of Sara laboring in the fields, her hands blistered and her mind racing with memories of home, evoke the stolen childhood that defines so many survivor testimonies. “Childhood stolen. Family gone. Identity erased. Courage everlasting,” as the promotional tagline aptly summarizes.

Director Steven Oritt, making his feature debut after documentary work, drew directly from Sara Shapiro’s own oral histories, recorded in the 1990s for the USC Shoah Foundation. Shapiro, who emigrated to the United States post-war, married, and raised a family in New Jersey, lived until 2018, passing away at age 89. Her interviews reveal a woman who never fully shed the weight of her past: “I was always looking over my shoulder,” she recounted. “Even in America, I wondered if someone would recognize me from those days.”

Oritt’s adaptation honors this by interweaving subtle flashbacks—fleeting visions of Sara’s mother braiding her hair or her father reciting Torah—that haunt the present like ghosts. Cinematographer Marek Wieser employs a desaturated palette, mirroring the emotional pallor of occupied life, with long takes that force viewers to inhabit Sara’s paranoia. A pivotal sequence involves a village festival where Sara must dance with local boys, her forced smiles masking terror as a neighbor eyes her suspiciously. It’s edge-of-your-seat filmmaking without a single explosion.

The supporting cast amplifies the moral complexity. Eryk Lubos as Ivan Patura embodies the archetype of the reluctant collaborator: a man who shelters Sara partly out of Christian charity, partly to exploit her labor, and perhaps to assuage his own guilt over past complicity. His wife, played by Olszańska, oscillates between maternal warmth and icy pragmatism, aware that harboring a Jew could doom her own children. These are not villains or saints but ordinary people warped by extraordinary circumstances—a theme that resonates with Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil.”

Beyond the personal, My Name Is Sara illuminates broader historical truths often overshadowed in popular Holocaust discourse. Ukraine’s role in the Shoah is fraught; while many Ukrainians risked everything to save Jews (over 2,600 recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem), collaboration was rampant under Nazi encouragement. Auxiliary police units, drawn from local populations, participated in roundups and executions. The film doesn’t shy from this, depicting Ukrainian peasants who denounce Jews for rewards or out of ingrained prejudice.

Yet it’s Sara’s internal journey that elevates the narrative to timeless artistry. Identity, in her world, becomes a currency more valuable than gold. She must erase not just her name but her essence: no more lighting Hanukkah candles, no more dreaming in Yiddish lullabies. This erasure is a form of spiritual murder, as poignant as physical death. Philosophers like Viktor Frankl, himself a survivor, spoke of finding meaning amid suffering; Sara’s meaning lies in sheer endurance, a quiet rebellion against annihilation.

Critics’ acclaim extends to the film’s educational value. The Hollywood Reporter praises its “accessibility for younger audiences without diluting the horror,” making it a potential classroom staple alongside The Diary of Anne Frank. In an era of rising antisemitism—FBI data shows a 63% increase in hate crimes against Jews in 2023—stories like Sara’s serve as antidotes to amnesia.

Netflix’s decision to stream My Name Is Sara comes at a prescient moment. Acquired as part of their push into international and historical dramas, it joins ranks with The Photographer of Mauthausen and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Viewer metrics, though not publicly detailed, suggest strong word-of-mouth; Reddit threads and TikTok reactions buzz with phrases like “couldn’t sleep after” and “more real than fiction.”

Delving deeper into production, the movie was shot on location in Poland and Ukraine, lending authenticity to its rural vistas. Budget constraints—reportedly under $2 million—forced creative ingenuity: practical effects for the massacre scene, minimal CGI, and a reliance on natural lighting. Composer Bartosz Chajdecki’s score, sparse and ethereal, incorporates subtle Jewish motifs that Sara must suppress, heightening the irony.

Interviews with the real Sara’s descendants reveal the film’s cathartic impact. Her granddaughter, speaking anonymously, noted: “Bubbe rarely talked about it, but seeing her story on screen… it’s like she’s alive again, warning us.” This intergenerational transmission is crucial; as the survivor generation fades, films become vessels for memory.

Thematically, My Name Is Sara grapples with faith’s fragility. Sara’s Judaism isn’t overtly practiced but pulses beneath the surface—a whispered Shema, a hidden Star of David pendant. Her survival raises profound questions: Does God abandon the faithful, or does faith evolve in hiding? The film offers no answers, only the raw ambiguity of lived trauma.

Comparatively, it stands alongside Ida (2013) in exploring Polish-Jewish identity post-war, though with a child’s perspective. Where Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winner is austere and black-and-white, Oritt’s is colored by youthful terror. Both, however, underscore Europe’s lingering ghosts.

As the credits roll—accompanied by archival photos of the real Sara, aged and smiling in America—the haunting persists. Viewers report dreams of hidden attics, false names, and the metallic tang of fear. This is the mark of true cinematic power: not to entertain, but to imprint.

In a streaming landscape cluttered with forgettable binge-fodder, My Name Is Sara demands attention. It’s a reminder that history isn’t abstract; it’s the story of a girl who outlived hell by becoming someone else. Childhood stolen. Family gone. Identity erased. Courage everlasting.

Now streaming on Netflix, this is the story that will haunt you long after the credits fade. Watch it, remember it, and let Sara’s unbreakable spirit challenge your own notions of resilience.